Teacher. Preacher. Bookworm.

There is a lot of talk about silence today. And solitude. And a tech-free, near-to-nature, God-voice-focused, Jesus-filled, near-hippy existence that all of us read about on our smartphones while hunched over our desks in our cubicles as we simultaneously slam our lunches and catch up on Facebook activity.

And I write that kind of stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I am a sucker for some solitude in the woods with just me, my Bible, and a journal. I would love to be a monk.

But you know what? I think it’s about time we gave a shout-out to shout-outs. And no, not the electronic social media-based kind of shout out. I mean, to SHOUTING. As in, NOISE.

My wife and I are both introverts. This means we can only handle people in small doses. Too much time around others, and we begin to shut down. Eye contact becomes painful. Forcing a smile starts to feel like bench-pressing two times our weight.

So after the end of a long week, mine spent wrangling college students, her’s spent constantly entertaining a high-energy and extroverted two-year old, we prefer to just veg out.

This Advent season I’ve been drawn to a Christmas hymn I was previously unfamiliar with. Since many Christmas songs can lose their punch due to being so familiar, I share these reflections in hope that you, also, can worship the Christ child as if it were your first time hearing of his birth.

The song is called “In the Bleak Midwinter”, and can be heard here and here.